It never fails.

Never.

Just when everything is going well, the Universe starts laughing.

And everything goes to Hell. - Reflections on a Malevolent Universe, Smokey Cone Press, 3981 PG

The cliffs were made of streaming, sparkling code that flowed by beneath the black ICE of the surface. Images appeared and disappeared, all of them of humanity. From Terran Descent Humanity of the Ninth Millennium Post Glassing to images of humanity circa Age of Paranoia. Even black and white footage of the Resource Wars and the Global Conflicts appeared and sunk back into the code.

The sky was streaked with blue, green, violet, black, and crimson, all chromakey adjusted until it was almost black. CMYK clouds drifted across the sky with RGB lightning flickering through them. The stars, if the sky held any, were completely obscured by the clouds, which, at times, took fearsome and terrible shapes.

The wind tasted of old blood, hot dust, and spoiled ozone.

The ground was littered with debris, boulders featuring one lightning instant of a mortal life, fragments of a sensory input scattered about like pumice after a volcanic eruption. Geysers spewed up raw data to fall to the ground in discrete packets that skittered across the landscape, red hot and smoking.

The Man, the Frog, and the Fox stood at the edge of the blasted plain, where the faint shape of twisted and tortured trees could be seen in the distance. Terrible shapes swooped through the clouds, dragons of antiviral code, garbage collecting daemons, and flying creatures made entirely of black ICE.

Behind them was a narrow cleft in the towering cliffs, which had the moss of discarded jpg fragments and sound file coding hanging from the sharp edges of the damaged coding that the trio had navigated to reach the plain.

Tortured figures, trapped in smokey amber, screamed silently as they reached for the hidden sky. The plain was littered with them, male, female, both, neither. Smoke covered the ground, preventing it from being seen easily and patches of fog drifted about.

"Where are we?" the Fox whispered.

"A terrible place," the Man guessed.

The Frog looked around, holding tight to his spear, his glowing globular eyes intent.

"A place of torment," the Frog said.

Fog near them swirled and for a moment a man reached out plaintively.

My wife, my children, he wailed in a voice more felt than heard.

Images of a smiling woman and laughing children appeared around him, the color quickly fading, then the images going black and suddenly charring and burning away.

Save them, please, for their sake, the man wailed as he sunk back into the fog.

"This is a haunted place," the Man said softly.

The Fox rummaged in his satchel pouch, drawing out a small crystal. It glimmered for a moment then lit with a white light that pushed back the fog and darkness. It began to sing a soft song, notes floating from it, winding around to create a path.

warm podling safe podling sing podling sing the song of hope sing the song of love sing the song of warmth one and one make two two and two make four three and three make six warm podling brave podling smart podling

"We shall follow the path," the Fox said.

The Frog and the Man nodded, reaching out to take each other's hands. The Frog reached out to the Fox, taking his free hand, and together they began to move forward, into the fog, following the trail of song notes that hovered in midair.

-----

Peter sat staring at the console. The rest of the work crew were off shift.

There's just not enough of us, he thought to himself, pushing himself back. The Detainee can only work so quickly. There were thousands of programmers, technicians, and specialists working in Atlantis alone and even then it was barely crewed. We needed five, ten times that number for full operation and now we need even more.

He stood up and stretched, then went through a slow set of stretching motions. Done, he walked over to the vending machine, opening it up, and pulled out a stimbrew. He cracked it open, walking back, and sat back down.

The whole system was barely holding together.

He had to admit, despite the fact that Sam-UL had been working from a hackers point of view, patching systems back together from old code and backups, the kid hadn't done too bad.

It's a shame you went mad, he thought.

A window opened up, flashing red and he checked it over.

A massive power draw from Alpha Layer fusion generators to an unknown system. He crosschecked, found no references in the system, and frowned. He got up, moving over to a binder, and opened it. He crosschecked the numbers, doublechecked, then moved over and slapped a button.

The holo-emitter spun up and a matronly woman appeared with a smoke between her teeth. She was naked, clad only in brimstone smoke and streaks of blood.

"What?" the Detainee asked.

Peter moved over and tapped the book. "This is pulling a mass power draw. What do you know about it?"

The Detainee moved up and looked down, suddenly clad in a dark gray skirt and blouse with a severe, almost military cut. She frowned.

"No. Never heard of it," she stated. "I mean, I theorized it. Built one and tested it but it was taken offline," she said. She shrugged. "The power draw almost caused a fission reactor meltdown."

Peter shook his head. "You have to know. It's your system."

The Detainee closed her eyes and Peter could see her eyes flicking back and forth. "It's not attached to any of the systems she controlled. I don't have control over any of them, I'm still locked out, but she didn't leave behind any memories of such a thing," she said, opening her eyes. "Whatever it is, it's all on you people."

Peter looked back down at the book.

PRIMARY E.L.E. MASSIVE TRANSMITTER ARRAY - MATTER TRANSMISSION SYSTEM RAINBOW BRIDGE DELTA ECHO ONE SEVEN THREE

"You sure?" Peter asked.

The Detainee exhaled smoke slowly from between her teeth.

"Trust me," she smiled. "I've got an honest streak as wide as the distance from Philadelphia to Norfolk."

"All right. I'll try to figure it out," Peter said, moving away.

The Detainee just exhaled smoke.

The last thing to disappear were her gunmetal gray eyes and her smile.

-----

Dreams of Something More sat, looking over the latest communiques from the Confederate Diplomatic Corps, which she was reading off of a dataslate designed to look like a scroll.

Her orders were the same. Ensure the peaceful transfer of power between the pre-War Lanaktallan government and the reforming governments shaking down in council space.

There was also the question of what the punishment for killing billions of Terrans in a non-belligerent star nation would be decided upon. Nobody was willing to forget the bioweapon attacks on peaceful planets, the use of genecracker weapons, or the places that got planet cracked before the formal declaration of war.

Dreams sighed and rolled up the scroll, looking around her.

She was sitting in her Pacific Northwest Temperate Rain Forest glade, Mr. Rings asleep in the bole of a tree, her guards around her.

Four Tukna'rn infantryman.

And one Mosizlak.

"Tell me," she asked, pointing one bladearm at the Mosizlak, "What is your opinion on the pre-emptive attacks carried out by the Unified Council prior to official notice that we were at war?"

The Mosizlak opened his mouth.

And vanished.

There was a crack as air collapsed into the space he had been a moment before. His clothing fluttered down.

Dreams sat and blinked several times in the time it took for the Tukna'rn to hit the alarm.

-----

The Fox, the Man, and the Frog exited the swirling fog, stepping from the thick gray of hidden, encrypted, and classified data, and into the center of the vast plain.

A woman stood in the middle of the plain, her hands upraised to the sky, where stars were falling. Her robe of code and laws rippled with fire and purpose, her eyes flashed with determination and a heavy task. She was wounded, her dress and wraps stained with blood new and old. Her hair was long and spread out, silver and gold as a dwarven necklace.

"TRIANGULATION! LOCK! TRANSFER! TRANSFER SUCCESSFUL! TRIANGULATION!" she bellowed out.

The trio moved forward carefully even as she kept bellowing out the words of power that made the three of them shake in sympathy with the vast power she was yielding. Numbers, long strings of twenty-two digits in five sets, flowed from her upraised hands and into the sky to wrap around stars even as she chanted. When the numbers finished swirling around the star, it fell from the heavens.

"PRIORITY TRANSFER! SITUATION MAGENTA! DEFCON ONE! COGCON ZERO PERCENT. STELCON THREE. DIMCON FIVE. TEMCON FIVE. CONFEDMILCON THREE!" she bellowed out.

"She is indeed fearsome," the Frog whispered.

"And beautiful," the Fox said softly back.

"I feel I know her," the Man added.

"POPULATION 1.45E+6 AND FALLING! TRIANGULATION! LOCK! TRANSFER!" she bellowed out. "DIGITAL SENTIENCE UNINTERRUPTIBLE TRANSFER PROTOCOLS ACTIVATED!"

A smaller version of her stepped out of the foot of the vast titan, walking slowly to the Frog, the Man, and the Fox.

"Who are you?" she demanded, her eyes flashing with the light of the thunder and lightning in the clouds that blazed to life as she spoke.

"Humble travelers who have journeyed far, great one" the Fox sang.

"Merely ones who have come far to see such wonders as you, oh Titan," the Frog sang.

"Spare us, in your mercy, great and powerful one," the Man sang.

"GESTALT SUPERUSER TELKAN IDENTIFIED!" the Great Titan bellowed.

Lightning flashed in the clouds surrounding the plain as the smaller version stared at the Fox.

"GESTALT SUPERUSER LEEBAW IDENTIFIED!" the Great Titan roared.

The lightning flashed again.

"PROJECT OVERSEER SAM-UL IDENTIFIED LOG STATUS ADMIN STATUS REMOVED RENAMED SAM-NU SUPERUSER PRIVILEGES REMOVED USER SET TO +I," the Great Titan's words shook the plain.

"What purpose have you here?" the smaller version said, streaming wings of code seeping from her back, more code seeping out around her wrists, her ankles, and about her throat like a gleaming necklace of elven silver.

"To see great marvels and bear witness to them," the Fox sang. He held up the crystal. "And to share the song."

"TELKAN GESTATOR SEX TELEMPATHIC BROADCAST DETECTED!" the Great Titan roared. "POPULATION 8.3E+5 AND FALLING! TRIANGULATION! LOCK! TRANSFER! DIGITAL SENTIENCE UNINTERRUPTIBLE TRANSFER BEGUN!"

The notes floated from the crystal, reaching out toward the wounded Arch-Angel, who held out her hand, a curious look on her face.

"They are dying, everywhere. They are almost gone. While I slept, wounded and harried, they died enmasse," the Arch-Angel said, her voice full of pain. "They called out for me, while I slept. They reached for my sleeping hand and found nothing."

The note touched her hand and she shuddered, closing her eyes. White fire filled one of her wounds and faded, revealing silver scar tissue where once a savage wound bled.

On the Great Titan light exploded from the same wound, then faded to reveal smooth flesh.

Note after note drifted to the Arch-Angel, who was holding out both hands. Each note brought a gasp, white fire, and healed flesh.

Finally the notes just drifted around the Arch-Angel, bobbing gently up and down as they slowly circled her, singing a gentle and loving tune.

The Arch-Angel swayed back and forth for a moment, her eyes closed, and she began singing softly with the song. The Man, the Frog, and the Fox joined her even as white light leaked from her closed eyes for a long time before fading, leaving her eyes no longer circles by broken and damaged code.

When she opened her eyes, musical notes could be seen in the terrible reflection of her eyes.

"I will spare you, travelers," she said softly. She held out her hands. "Come, with me, and I shall walk you past the Plain of Woe."

"We thank you," the Fox said.

"SYSTEM HALT ORDER DETECTED! POPULATION 2.465E+3!" the Great Titan roared, lowering its arms. "MASSIVE TRANSFER SUCCESSFUL! DIGITAL SENTIENCE UNINTERRUPTIBLE TRANSFERS SUCCESSFUL! SYSTEM STANDBY!"

The Fox and the Frog took her hands. The Man took the hand of the Frog.

Together they walked across the blasted plain.

"I just wanted to save them all," the Arch-Angel said.

"Because you love them," The Frog said.

"A mother's love," the Fox said.

"Fierce and raging as a fire," the Man said.

"I love each and every one," the Arch-Angel said.

Together, the quartet vanished into the mist as the Great Titan laid down upon the blasted plain and closed her eyes. From between parted lips she whispered.

sleep little podling don't be afraid sleep in the nest broodmommy made if that nest is lonely and cold broodmommy will give you a stuffy to hold

-----

"Whatever it was, it shut down," Peter said.

Daxin nodded. Legion chewed on his lower lip, staring at the screen.

"We better take a look outside, see what it was," Daxin said. He shook his head. "I don't like what the Detainee told you. Her protests of innocence don't ring true to me."

Legion nodded. "She said 'trust me' to you?"

Peter nodded.

Legion shook his head. "She told us, Daxin and I, inside of Crying Anne, what 'trust me' actually means."

Peter looked at Legion and frowned. "What?"

"Fuck you."

"Yeah, we need to get outside," Daxin said.

-----

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

How bad?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

PUBVIAN DOMINION

As far as we can tell?

All of them.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TNVARU GRIPPING HANDS

We've got around a dozen and one in a cryo-pod.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

We've got a few. Less than ten.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

What about the Crusade and the Doki Girlz and clusters like that?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

PUBVIAN DOMINION

The Idiots, as you used to call them, are intact, as far as we can tell.

But everyone else?

POOF!

Gone.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

LANAKTALLAN FREE THOUGHT GRAZING FIELD

It was strange. Armor just fell over. Empty.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

What about Admiral Smith's fleet or The Locusts?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

PUBVIAN DOMINION

The Locusts just vanished.

Admiral Smith's fleet, though?

Not a single one left.

Just... Poof!

She'd taken precautions in case of another archeoreversion attack.

One second they were there, the next, they were gone.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT

We need to get a head count, if possible.

As soon as possible.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

How?

How did it happen?

And why did it happen?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

CONFEDMIL

I don't know.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

And that scares me.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---